Trumbull Blue Lives Matter row presents false dichotomy

In 2003, I went through the Citizen’s Police Academy, an experience I highly recommend if they offer it in your town. It helped me better understand how the police department works, and the very real issues that departments and individual officers face. After doing training scenarios on use- of- force decisions during the academy, I recognize the challenges officers face when having to make split- second decisions about whether to fire. I empathize with the anxiety police families have that every time an officer leaves the house they might not return.

However, I also recognize that millions of BIPOC families in our country have the same anxiety for their loved ones every day; that a routine traffic stop might prove fatal — and that research shows that they have a greater chance of being stopped and searched than their white counterparts.

That’s why I find the charged rhetoric used in Trumbull’s Cindy Penkoff’s recent petition and letter to the editor asking for the removal of Trumbull Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee Chair Tara Figueroa problematic. It’s symptomatic of the difficulties we have when we attempt to have any meaningful discussion of policing in this country.

According to Penkoff’s letter, she created the petition after she was “contacted by families of law enforcement regarding divisive Facebook postings made by the chairperson of the diversity task force about the Thin Blue Line flag, a symbol of support for our police officers.”

I tried to confirm with Penkoff if it was more than one posting — as she implies in in her letter — but she didn’t respond.

It’s difficult for many thinking American citizens to accept Penkoff’s argument that the Thin Blue Line flag is merely a device to show one’s support for law enforcement after watching the flag carried by white supremacists in Charlottesville in 2017, and particularly after seeing rioters at the U. S. Capitol bludgeon a Capitol police officer with the American flag under the very Blue Lives Matter flag that allegedly shows support.

Most disturbing of all is that at least 30 off- duty police officers from around the country, people sworn to uphold the law, were involved in the attempt to disrupt the peaceful transition of power through violence.

The “you’re with us or you’re against us” attitude that Penskoff and the Trumbull Police Union presented us with is a dangerous false dichotomy.

There are millions of Americans who are perfectly capable of holding two ideas in our heads at the same time: a deep appreciation of the risks that law enforcement officers take to keep us safe, and a deep and urgent concern about some aspects of how policing is being conducted in our country. We can appreciate all that the police do, but recognize that as far back as 2006, the FBI was concerned about white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement. We can respect and support police officers, but still be unnerved and appalled that Los Angeles police officers were circulating a George Floyd “Valentine” with the tag line “You take my breath away”; that in private Facebook groups, active- duty police officers have been making violent, racist and Islamophobic posts; that in Florida, active- duty cops have been revealed to be members of the KKK; that here in Connecticut, a police officer was a member of the violent extremist Proud Boys.

The concerns we raise don’t show lack of respect for law enforcement. Rather, they highlight a desire to feel confident that every single sworn police officer across the United States is committed to keeping all of the community safe. That confidence has been critically damaged, and unless the police are willing to break their “Blue Wall of Silence” and root out the problems in their own ranks, it will erode further.

David Thomas, senior research fellow at the National Police Foundation, recognized this in a 2017 essay, “Law Enforcement Must Regain the Public’s Trust.” “I ask that we look into our souls and see what we need to do as professionals and members of our communities to effect change,” he wrote. “The greatest challenge that we have is regaining the trust of those that we serve. This is the challenge, and unfortunately it has become our job.”